Sexist Beatdown: Man-Boner-Gratifying Edition

Ah, Sexist Beatdown: it just gets sexier by the week, people! This week it got particularly sexy, after I read a sexy article by Sexist Beatdown co-conspirator and The Sexist blogger Amanda Hess in which she sexily explained why the phrase "sex-positive feminist" is so annoying, and I, although a sexy sex-positive feminist for lo these many years now, found that I agreed!

So, this week: the tragic tale of my time as the worst sex educator ever employed by the Nameless Sex-Positive Sex Toy Shop That Would Not Want Me To Represent Its Views, surprising things you can find up your butt, and how performance art pieces entitled "No, Seriously, Look Up In There, It's Crazy: The Socio-Political Impact of My Vagina" have benefited our society today.

ILLUSTRATION: Can you guess which of these items I got to lovingly clean and/or caress with a damp cloth every day, for money? HINT: Which ones didn't I, Jesus.

AMANDA: ok. so. sex sex sex sex feminism sex

SADY: Indeed! I have, at times - many, many, MANY times - identified as a "sex-positive" feminist. Yet your article demonstrated for me some of the reasons why that can be annoying even to my very own ears!

AMANDA: yeah, and the issue is actually a lot more interesting than the form it was presented in my post ("rant")

SADY: Well, I feel like "sex-positive" is kind of a necessary construction, or was, at a certain point, when people were arguing with each other over whether porn, or heterosexual intercourse, was inherently oppressive to the ladies because of The Sexism. I even feel like right now we need to talk about ladies having sex drives and bodies that can enjoy sex and how that is not just necessarily some thing women inexplicably do to gratify man boners!

AMANDA: incidentally, i identify as a man boner gratifying feminist. i definitely agree with you, and i think the history of "sex positivity" and "feminist" is part of the reason it sort of nonsexually rubs me the wrong way. i just think at this point it's so obvious that feminists are not sex-negative. but i am a young female feminist-identifying person, so maybe it's not as obvious to, say, feminist-hating middle aged men.

SADY: RIGHT? They probably think you are out luring the man boners into wood chippers or something. OR marrying dudes so you can then divorce them, which I hear is quite popular. OR, you are a big old slutty slut slut boner slut. ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE TRUE, in the mind of the Middle-Aged-Feminist-Fearing-Dude.

AMANDA: yeah. and specifically with this conference, which i've never been to but i hear is really interesting and respected and everything, i want to be careful not to criticize a speaker selection because she was a porn star or used to do performance art shows where she put flashlights up her vagina or whatever. because that would be sex-negative and unfair, but at the same time, nothing about that stuff really interests me as a feminist and i wonder if we have to continue to insist on feminism being "cool" and not "prude" in our own feminist circles too in order to benefit the image that middle-aged wanker dudes have.

SADY: well, yeah, if there is one thing several decades of "I, Too, Have A Vagina, And Sex With It: A Performance Art Piece" has accomplished, it's to make women feel that having sex and sex drives is totally normal. has it convinced DUDES that women having sex and sex drives is totally normal? I am not sure! But it really seems that if you identify as a feminist these days it's assumed that you're also OK with sex. It's assumed if you're a young woman you do! It's not even really a "feminist" concept any more! So why do we need to keep emphasizing it, if not to try to make ourselves less threatening?

AMANDA: i mean, there is nothing wrong with feminist conferences going into these sort of related ideas that are maybe less serious and that a lot of the participants will probably be interested in. i just think that a lot of times it gets into this territory that's like, sex is great, all kinds of sex is great, this particular thing i do with my boobs and a swing or something is great, and at some point, i kind of just want to get back to Afghanistan or whatever

SADY: Yeah. I mean, I want to say a thing in defense of the SPF, and that is that it's interesting to talk about. When I was working in Ye Olde Sex-Positive Sex Toy Shoppe (not mentioned by name because I was possibly the worst employee they ever had, could not keep a till, whatever) I learned that it is FREAKING AMAZING what most people don't know about their bodies. How many nerve endings do you have up your butt? Is it roughly comparable to the number of ones you have in your cooter? I required employment at the store to tell me this!

AMANDA: yeah---i've found since writing the post, that talking about sex-positivity is actually super interesting! and i'm sex positive, i guess. i just usually associate talking with "sex positivity" as something different from both "sex issues" and "sexism," and it sometimes involves trying to sell a group of college girls dildos. but that is my own bias.

SADY: Selling them dildos OF FREEDOM, my friend! But yeah, "sex-positive" gets caught in this thing where we're talking about sex is great, the kind of sex YOU have is great, the kind of sex I have is great, sex sex yay - and as far as that goes, what with its being tied to LGBTQ stuff and not hating people because of how they get off, good. But can we also talk about the social stuff involved? And how to actually get actual social rights for folks? Like, yeah, some dude is eventually going to think I'm a slut because I've had sex, or a bitch because I haven't had sex with HIM. Granted. However, if I live in a world where sexual harassment and rape are not culturally or legally tolerated, he poses far less of a threat!

AMANDA: yeah, i mean the sex part of sex positivity i am not interested in. like, whatever you do when you have sex i could care less about. it's when those behaviors become stigmatized or litigated or whatever when i become interested. gah, i think i am a sex positive feminist. i dont know what i am anymore

SADY: ha ha, COME TO THE OTHER SIDE.

AMANDA: are there rope restraints over there

SADY: WE ARE DEMONSTRATING ROPE BONDAGE.

AMANDA: AHH

I Want You to Want Me. Oh, No, Wait, I Want Crispin Glover!

Hey, ladies! It's ten in the morning on a Monday! This means that, as you are all drinking your coffees and checking your e-mails and cursing the Lord God Almighty for the eight-hour work day and its wicked helpmeet, the five-day work week, it's time to talk about... YOUR VAGINA!

Yes, I know, this is totally appetizing, and exactly what you wanted to be thinking about right now. You can thank me later. Did you know, ladies, that your vaginas are all turned on by pornography? All types of pornography can do this to your vagina, says certified vagina scientist Meredith Chivers in the New York Times: straight people pornography, lesbian lady pornography, gay man pornography, even bonobo pornography! She knows this because there is some kind of terrifying vagina monitor that she stuck up a bunch of lady research subjects ("But I was here for the Xanax trials!") and observed that the vaginas in question got all lubed up after exposure to said porns. Yet the ladies, in clear defiance of the dictates imposed by their vaginas, only reported arousal when watching the pornography that corresponded to their preferred form of humping. This means that either (a) lubrication and feeling turned on are two different things, or (b) your brain is LYING because it doesn't want anyone to know your vagina is such a perv.

Now, there is a perfectly sensical explanation for this finding, and it is as follows: rape (or "unwanted vaginal penetration," as the Times and/or certified vagina scientist Meredith Chivers cheerfully call it) is a violent act that causes physical injury; if your vagina automatically lubes up in the presence of sexual signifiers, your chances for severe internal injury are somewhat diminished. (Though not in a huge way! And this should in no way be interpreted as a signal from your body not to fight back! The body, it has defense mechanisms; this is maybe one. That is all.) This theory has already been put forth, most notably by Natalie Angier in her (TEN-YEAR-OLD) book Woman: An Intimate Geography, so there's no chance the Times would devote this much space to such an interesting and relatively non-newsy finding unless they could find some way to attach a ridonkulous, out-of-date, totally sexist generalization to it, so the whole time you are reading this article you are just waiting for it to land and... oh, here it is!

When she peers into the giant forest [that is your vagina - ED.], Chivers told me, she considers the possibility that along with what she called a “rudderless” system of reflexive physiological arousal, women’s system of desire, the cognitive domain of lust, is more receptive than aggressive. “One of the things I think about,” she said, “is the dyad formed by men and women. Certainly women are very sexual and have the capacity to be even more sexual than men, but one possibility is that instead of it being a go-out-there-and-get-it kind of sexuality, it’s more of a reactive process. If you have this dyad, and one part is pumped full of testosterone, is more interested in risk taking, is probably more aggressive, you’ve got a very strong motivational force. It wouldn’t make sense to have another similar force. You need something complementary. And I’ve often thought that there is something really powerful for women’s sexuality about being desired. That receptivity element. At some point I’d love to do a study that would look at that.”

Oh, yes! Women are all turned on by being wanted, having a sexuality that is essentially passive, reflexive, and performative, rather than a biological drive which causes us to pursue sex like The Dudes (but not The Dude; he was too laid-back)! Oh, and this in no way makes sense when applied to lesbian ladies, because basically no girls would ever have sex with any other girls if this were true, because they would all sort of sit around and stare at each other and wait for someone to get turned on so they could reciprocate, and it would never happen! Oh, and women didn't actually report being consciously turned on by all types of pornography, so this makes less sense than ever! Oh, and porn-watching is not sex and fantasy is not reality so it makes no sense to use someone's response to a fantasy scenario to explain their behavior or desires in the real live world! Awesome! Thank you, Science!

Yes, there are many legitimate criticisms to be made of this theory. However, I am choosing to believe it with the full strength of my conviction. This is because, prior to reading this article, I was convinced (through sad experience) that it was possible to get turned on by a dude who did not only not desire me, but actually wanted nothing to do with me. Now I know this is untrue! They were simply hiding their overwhelming passion and/or boners, due to society's harsh constraints. Since I am not a creep, I will not press the issue: however, it's good to know they were all so totally into me all along. Here, I present a photo gallery of Men Who Have Wanted Me through the years.

RAHM EMANUEL: Seems psychotically intense in a way that makes him kind of sexy; wants me.

CRISPIN GLOVER: Seems just plain psychotic in a way that would make dating him a wonderland of Quirks and Issues; wants me.

RIVERS CUOMO: Delicate man-flower (Quirks! Issues!) who makes crappy music; would probably not perform said crappy music while we were making out; therefore, wants me.

PAUL RUDD: Wants me and every single woman I have ever spoken to; posed for this picture.

SPECIAL AGENT FOX MULDER: Fictional; has wanted me since I hit puberty. Perv.

You Know What I Love? Responsible Journalism.

Like this charming lede in the New York Times, which does not at all trivialize date rape:

In the new issue of Nature, the neuroscientist Larry Young offers a grand unified theory of love. After analyzing the brain chemistry of mammalian pair bonding — and, not incidentally, explaining humans’ peculiar erotic fascination with breasts — Dr. Young predicts that it won’t be long before an unscrupulous suitor could sneak a pharmaceutical love potion into your drink.

Ah, the power of language: with a single adjective, you can remove "drugging a woman in order to have sex with her" from the realm of vicious crime intended to enforce male domination, police women's sexuality, and keep women scared with the constant, unspoken threat of random, devastating violation at the hands of men and therefore less likely to live full lives or to confront men directly, and turn it into something that might happen on an episode of Jeeves & Wooster. "Why Bertie, I do believe you've date raped me! You unscrupulous cad!"

I say, it was a dashed good scheme, eh wot?

Anyway:

That’s the bad news.

Ha ha, I would say so!

The not-so-bad news is that you may enjoy this potion if you took it knowingly with the right person. But the really good news, as I see it, is that we might reverse-engineer an anti-love potion, a vaccine preventing you from making an infatuated ass of yourself. Although this love vaccine isn’t mentioned in Dr. Young’s essay, when I raised the prospect he agreed it could also be in the offing.

Oh, Science! Is there anything it can't do? It can even inspire this particular dude to write, seemingly from the depths of bummedness, that love is "a dangerous disease" and "a potentially fatal chemical imbalance." JEEZ.

Actually, there are plenty of things Science can't do, or can't do yet, anyway, but this development does at least offer some hope. For example, there might, at some point in the future, be an "actually being friends with your ex, rather than writing each other nice e-mails about Battlestar and then fighting like wolverines every time you are in the same room" potion. Or a "being civil and generous to your boyfriend's ex/your ex's girlfriend because, heck, they didn't do anything you haven't done" drug. Or maybe - just maybe - there could be some sort of very specific medication to keep a man from reciting the lyrics to Ice Cube's gender-theory masterpiece "A Bitch Is A Bitch" in several different conversations just to see you react! ("Now, the title 'bitch' don't apply to all women, but all women got a little bitch in 'em." "OH MY GOD." "But he says it doesn't apply to all women! You're being very unfair! Now: it's like a disease that plagues their character, taking the women of America." "OH SO IT'S A DISEASE NOW IS IT HOW INSIGHTFUL." "It starts with the letter B; it makes a girl like that think she's better than me.") There might even, at some far-distant point in the future, be a "don't put this on the Internet because you can never take it back and also it's kind of stupid" drug. Until then, however, we will all just have to rely on our own finer instincts and act like grown-ups.

So, you know, we're fucked.

Neg: A Love Story

I remember, in my senior year of college, discussing Tess of the D'Urbervilles in what was, I now believe, the finest class of my college years. ("19th Century English Novels!" Partayyyyy!) I, of course, loved Tess, and wanted to converse for hours on end about its many fascinating points - so true! so relevant to Our Society Today! - much to the disgust of all the other (fabulous; never has there been a group of undergraduates so fabulous) students, who thought it was icky girl stuff. 

"When Angel Clare leaves her though, and Tess goes back to her rapist to keep from starving?" I said, at one point. "I mean, I cried. I am not ashamed." 

"I did not," said one of the students, a boy with a scholarly-looking beard who wore three-piece vintage suits to class every day, "because I am a man." 

I laughed. I also immediately formed a crush on the boy with the three-piece suits, or whatever it is when you could have a crush if you did not have better things to do and also some lingering uncertainty as to whether the dude in question dates chicks. Now, of course, I know that he captured my interest through the highly scientific principle of "negging." 

I have had conversations, dear reader, about my ongoing fascination with the whole Pick-Up Artist movement, and its founding father, Mystery. They mostly go like this: "Stop it! It is ridiculously not worth noticing! You look dumb when you insist on talking about it!" I know this is true, and yet I cannot look away! I mean: what is "peacocking?" Does it explain the top hats?  Is Chuck Bass a devotee of Mystery, and if so, does this explain why, in the most recent episode of Gossip Girl I have seen, he dresses entirely in fetching shades of violet, and occasionally in a cravat? Such are the eternal questions! 

"Negs" are by far the most fascinating of devices. They basically consist of doing or saying mean or dismissive things to a girl, so that she will try to impress you and ultimately sleep with you as a means of proving how cool she is. She will then think she's won, because if you're into having sex with her, you must have some kind of interest in her, or at least in her boobs, and if you are a certain kind of sad drunk girl in a certain kind of sad drunk circumstance then you may know the difference between "interested in me" and "interested in my boobs" in theory, but you also are at a point where you just do not care. OR SO I HAVE HEARD!

Paul Rudd's entire career is built on negging. In his first role of note, Clueless, he insulted Alicia Silverstone until she was so quiveringly hot for him that she forgot he was her stepbrother. In The Object of My Affection, he played a gay man, which is actually a highly recommended neg. (The line endorsed by Mystery is, "if I weren't gay, you would so be my type," which I guess works on the theory that you can later surprise her with your boner? I don't know.) In Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, he was wasted as the dicked-over nice guy Paris, but he recovered his Shakespearian credentials as Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night, who negs so masterfully that Viola actually helps him seduce another lady. This is unintentional - Viola is dressed as a dude - but it still works! To watch Rudd in Wet Hot American Summer is to watch a performance built entirely on Neg, a study in Neg, in fact, which is transcendent in its mastery. To see him tonguily macking on a lady, then (literally!) pushing her away, whirling giddily around a pole while giving the finger to his girlfriend, or dismissing another girl mid-makeout with a bored, "you taste like hamburgers, I don't like you any more," is to come to a new understanding of the neg and its powers. It is, to my mind, his finest work. 

Then, of course, there are his contributions to the Apatovian canon, most notably his performance as the neg-addicted spouse of Lesley Mann in Knocked Up. He ignores her, subtly implies that she is beneath his notice with every statement he makes, and ditches her to go watch Spider-Man and play fantasy baseball. I basically broke up with a dude because of Paul Rudd in Knocked Up - well, Paul Rudd and the moment where a heavily pregnant, obviously exhausted Katherine Heigl sits on the kitchen floor, surrounded by bongs and toys, and asks of a random object, "what is this?" "It's a ninja weapon," Seth Rogen replies, and I knew in that moment that I was seeing only the best possible version of my future. I could also be the girl on the lawn, tearily pleading, "I like Spider-Man, too." I started crying on the way home, and although it took a while for that particular relationship to wrap up, Knocked Up represents the moment I realized I was going to leave. 

Which brings us to another point: negging, in the real world, gets old fast. As a form of flirtation, it is tolerable and occasionally intriguing; as a device to keep 'em coming, not so much. Paul Rudd is only charming and funny because, like that other cinematic neg-master Neal Patrick Harris (who is gay IRL, and so gets bonus points) he manages to portray both the elusive too-cool-for-you charm of the neg and its inherent cruelty, and does so with a little twinkle and a slight (or major) over-the-topness that lets you know he knows how ridiculous it is. You get the sense that he is not a jerk but a "jerk," that he's satirizing the jerk modus operandi; you get the corresponding sense (well, I do, and I know it to be pretty much baseless) that he is funny as a fictional prick because he's observed real pricks, and thinks as little of them as you do. 

In conclusion: dudes should not neg. This will eventually result in them being tossed to the curb, like a camper thrown from a speeding van in Paul Rudd's Wet Hot American Summer. They should, however, pretend to neg, for it is surprisingly darling. Also, that dude from my English Lit class? The possibly gay one with the peacocky three-piece suits and the "because I am a man" one-liners? That dude wanted me bad. 

111,111,117th Meeting of Sisterhood of Sluts, loc. in Foul Caves of Wantonry: Presentation Notes

My fellow sluts: for years, we have feared this day. Since time immemorial, we have practiced our dark arts in secrecy, confident that we could continue to drain the vital fluids of this world's puny males while keeping our true natures hidden. To all appearances, we are human women, not foul succubi suckled at Lilith's teat, sent to besmirch men with our whoredom, to crush their proud faith in having slept with more people than their girlfriends and therefore being macho manly masculine men, and, ultimately, to deliver their quivering, emasculated souls to Satan, who will call them pussies and laugh at them in the locker room before snapping their asses with his dampened Hell Towel. (Ah, the Hell Towel. Most feared of all the Dark Lord's punishments, exceeding even the Wedgie of Fire!) The large, slow-witted, betesticled ones could never guess our master plan.

Or so we thought. For, against all odds, one of them has done just that. He has even exerted his wrinkly organ-sack (the one in his skull!) to write the blog post entitled "It's Easy To Identify a Slut," the blog post that, it is whispered, may at last foil our glorious scheme. His name - ah, that accursed name! - is Roissy!

We need not despair, sisters in harlotry! We have thwarted the hairy, lumbering sausage-creatures before, easily lulled as they are by our most diabolical creation, that which they call "anal." All will be well - so long as we do not reveal the existence of the Doomsday Device.

Awwwwww, CRAP.

ANYWAY, there's a dude named Roissy on the Internet, and he has apparently paid for a lot of phone sex in his time, because he has composed a blog post written entirely in the idiom of professional dirty talk about why dudes shouldn't date sluts and which behaviors are signals of slutdom.

You may be tempted to get all, "whoa, why is a dude who is so hugely into porn also so opposed to women who have sex?" Then you will realize that it totally makes sense, because mainstream porn language, if you've ever paid attention to it, is always like, "Watch this Stupid Slut Get Slammed/Pounded/Torn Up/Banged/Some Other Word Which Signifies Violence but Is Used in this Context to Connote Fucking, Because Fucking is Totally Awesome for Dudes, but She is Stupid and a Bad Person for Doing It Anyway, Hence Our Sexy Beating-Up Talk." It's gross and creepy, and can screw with your head, especially if you are inexperienced or sheltered or a little crazy in the first place. If you want an example... well, have you met Roissy?

Observe, sisters, his knowledge of our demonic ways! 

Acknowledging the Existence... of SEX!

Truly, as Roissy observes, a woman who "broaches the subject of sex first" is no more than a common slattern! Any mention of it, such as "my husband of twenty years and I are having more sex lately," or, "since I entered a convent and took a vow of celibacy, I no longer have sex," is an admission of whoredom most depraved.  

Having Preferences... in Regard to SEX!

Ladies so heartless as not to bask in "the glow of bedroom missionary sex," preferring instead the vile French arts of maybe changing positions every once in a while or giving a beej or something, anything, rather than doing the same thing over and over and then over again: 'tis pity you're all whores! Because you totally are, because Roissy says so. 

Knowing How... to have SEX!

"Hey man, nothing like getting a BJ from a chick who knows how to hit the underside with her tongue, but it does make you wonder how much dick it required for her to reach that level of professionalism," quoth Roissy. Yo brah, one learns that particular tactic by skimming any given issue of Cosmo. In his quest to find and despoil all the virgins in the land, it appears that Roissy has been getting himself some half-assed, unenthusiastic blowjobs. I, for one, am shocked!

Masturbating... while thinking of SEX!

Yes, it's true: women who own vibrators or watch porn are "high testosterone sex fiends!" One can spot such creatures by looking for "forearm hair, narrow hips, broad shoulders, a penchant for cursing, a flat ass (adjusted for race), career ambition, and status whoring." 

You know, it occurs to me that my thoughts on masturbation are pretty fucking personal, and probably none of your goddamn business. Unless you'd like to schedule some sort of high-profile panel conference on the subject, in which case you can reach me at tigerbeatdown@gmail.com!

Not Wearing Underwear All the Time, Because Underwear Covers the Genitals, and the Genitals Are Used... for SEX!

I told you, they are all in the laundry right now! Oh, AND WHAT.

Being Black. 

No jokes on this one. He just says that all black women are sluts. To be honest, I was kind of used to the vehement, disturbing misogyny at this point, so the vehement disturbing racism came as a surprise. He's complex, that Roissy. 

But wait! You are saying. (I have a bug installed in your computer. By the way, who pays to download Southland Tales from iTunes? Well, you, apparently.) Aren't all of these qualifications completely useless, applying as they do to pretty much every female person on the face of the planet at one point or another? I have asked myself the same. Those were the dark ages, before I read the final qualification on his list. For would a non-slut ever go so low as to

Imply or State Outright that Roissy Has a Small Penis, Unsuitable... for SEX?

Oh, no, wait; from the look of things (the "look" of things being that Roissy is either coming out of a bad divorce or has never touched a woman, and allays whatever insecurities he might have by creating a fantasy blog world where he is an undisputed master of poonani and gets to reject women, rather than be rejected by them, which - it is heartbreakingly obvious - is what happens in the real world) they totally would do that. 

"When I feel humongous with a girl, I know she has a normal sized snatch," Roissy writes. This means, of course, that the women he hasn't felt "humongous" with must have had huge vaginas, and must therefore be sluts, and must therefore be bad people, and that it must therefore be All Their Fault, and in no way indicative of his (huge, he swears!) dick size. 

Which is what it's about, really: looking for ways to blame us, the vile floozies of this Sisterhood (all hail the silicone vibrator attachments of Satan!) rather than allowing himself to realize that the problem is him, always has been him, and he is alone in this world, and unloved, and unlovable, and very very lonely. 

Oh, and remember our earlier talk, about encoded violence in porn language? 

"The more I feel like I’m ripping her insides to shreds, the likelier I am to move her to the front of my cherished girlfriend queue," he continues.

On a completely unrelated note, Roissy has this post about how he tested his Mystery-style seduction tactics on his three-year-old niece!

On a very much related note, EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

-- AND NOW, THE SECRET PRIZE --

You know, after dealing with something so unpleasant, it's nice to hear a song with a message. Open your heart and your mind!

What Do Steven D. Levitt and Summer's Eve Have In Common?

Answer: they are both douches.

Today, as you may be aware, is the Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. In a culture where it's cool to play a game that has a "fuck prostitute then beat her to get your money back" option (yeah, I know, you can kill anyone in GTA, and maybe you can even rob anyone in GTA - the prostitutes, however, are the only ones that you basically get to rape by retroactively removing the grounds for consent) that is mighty necessary.

I've known a lot of women who have worked in the sex industry - phone sex operators, dancers, pin-up girls, escorts - and they tend to have several things in common, among which are (a) amazing senses of humor, (b) a very low tolerance for any variety of bullshit, and (c) stories about being treated like subhuman trash by bosses, clients, and even friends or lovers who had "moral" objections to their jobs. The abuse they take can be emotional, financial (just ask a dancer about how club owners work - they can charge you for working in their establishment, then take a percentage of the money that you make there, meaning basically that you pay a fee for making them a profit) or, yes, all too often, physical; what matters is that sex workers can't really fight back. When you enter the industry, it seems, you're stripped of both your voice and your right to defend yourself. The other person always has a superior weapon: I may be an asshole, a con man, an abuser, or a rapist, they can say, but you're a whore. The legal system, along with most of the American public, will agree.

Sex workers are considered expendable - and, because of that fact, they're all too often targets of violence. Because of that fact, it's also not considered necessary to treat their deaths with any pretense of respect or compassion.

Look at this. Now look at this. Now, tell me that I'm wrong.

Because sex workers aren't considered fully human, it's completely acceptable to form strong opinions of them or use them as fodder for your career-making journalistic think-pieces without soliciting their input, representing their (diverse, obviously) perspectives, or even speaking to one of them. Even DFW's piece on the AVN Awards had an unfortunate "look at the freaks/what if I get a boner?" tone, but the worst example of it, in recent memory, is Female Chauvinist Pigs, a Defense-of-the-One-True-Feminism type deal by journalist Ariel Levy. Female Chauvinist Pigs contends that (a) more women these days are modeling their sexuality on that which is presented by sex workers, specifically that of porn stars and strippers - which is true, (b) it has become culturally acceptable to visit strip clubs or watch porn, even if you are a lady - which is true, and (c) all sex workers hate their jobs and are exploited and sad and never experience "authentic" arousal, which could be true (although it's, you know, not, because you can never begin a sentence with "all sex workers" and have any hope of its being accurate) although Levy would have no way of knowing that, because in her little opus on the fakeness and sadness of sex workers she does not interview a single goddamn one of them. She seems never to have considered that they might have a perspective on the matter, or that they could say anything she could not say for them.

Which, all things considered, is still a step up from writing an article in which sex workers - people, who happen to do sex work- are referred to, repeatedly, as "goods." As objects. As inhuman, removed from any discussion of human opinions, or experiences, or rights.

Just in time for the Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.

Wow, what a fucking douche.

[Via and via.]

Can You "Spot" the Unnecessary "Quotation" Marks?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Aaron P. Taylor Did Not Rape You. He Deserves a Cookie!

Yes, it's true: if you are reading this, Aaron P. Taylor of UnCommoN SENSE ("a Blog on Deciphering the Enigma that is Life") probably did not rape you. (If he did: my apologies. You can put away the baking sheet now.) In fact, Aaron P. Taylor cares so much about rape, and your safety from it, that he put together a little blog post, entitled "Advice 4 Women: How Not to Get a 'Deserved' Raping."

Ha ha, well, too late for me, I guess! If only I'd found Aaron P. Taylor earlier. Aaron P. Taylor: WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE? That is what I would like to know!

Let's get down to business. Aaron P. Taylor - born on January 7, 1982, in Petersburg, VA, where he did not rape you - begins by laying down a little slice of the enigma that is his life, so as to decipher it. Here, he finds himself at a club in Atlanta, GA, where he has been living for the past several years while not raping you:

We got on the dance floor, and started dancing. At first it was no-touch dancing, with both of us dancing in front of each other doing the best two-steps we could. After the first dance session, she went away for a while, and I proceeded to continue dancing by myself.

A few minutes later, she came over again, and wanted to dance to another song. Once again, I agreed.

This time, though, the dancing she did was more suggestive...

The next time we danced, our faces were touching again. Me, being the guy I am, decided to go in for a light kiss. I puckered up my lips, tilted my head to the side, and…

BOOM! She turned her face and I got the cheek!

BOOM! Aaron P. Taylor got the cheek! POW! That girl did not want a sexing from Aaron P. Taylor! ZAP! Aaron P. Taylor is ugly! (Seriously, look at the picture. Is that a lazy eye?)

Anyway, Aaron P. Taylor, who graduated from Hampton University with a degree in Fine and Performing Arts that he earned by studying hard and not raping you, was inspired by this curious incident to write a little bit about what he could have done, had he not chosen to engage in the fine gentlemanly not-raping-you type of behavior which Aaron P. Taylor always strives to uphold:

Had I been a less-than-understanding guy (i.e., a forceful-type of guy who always “gets what he wants by any means necessary”), I could have just as easily forced a kiss on her, or worse - waited until after the club let out to follow her to her car, then followed her to her house. And, when she got out her car, I could have been right there ready to pounce on her, saying: “I think you owe me something, lady!!”

My goodness, Aaron P. Taylor! That is a very active and suspiciously detailed fantasy life you've got going on there! On the other hands, it is certainly nice that you are including these super helpful "Tips for the Rapey" in your anti-rape article: it shows that you don't take sides.

So, we've established that Aaron P. Taylor did not rape you, because Aaron P. Taylor is not a less-than-understanding guy. (He certainly understands how to stalk and rape someone! NOT THAT HE EVER WOULD.) Here are some other things that Aaron P. Taylor did not do:

• Aaron P. Taylor did not did not videotape himself throwing a puppy over a cliff while serving a term of military service; he also did not post the subsequent video on YouTube.
• Aaron P. Taylor did not commit the Zodiac murders; he also did not taunt various individuals with cryptic messages pertaining to said murders.
• Aaron P. Taylor did not start the popular internet practice of "Rick Rolling."
• Aaron P. Taylor did not conspire to conceal the location of Osama bin Laden following the attacks of 9/11.
• Aaron P. Taylor's favorite American Idol contestant was not Sanjaya; he was not moved to hysterical tears by Sanjaya's performances, and he did not vote for him repeatedly.
• Aaron P. Taylor did not boil a rabbit belonging to Michael Douglas following the end of their affair, thereby exposing his deep rage and mental instability; close examination reveals this to be a scene from the movie Fatal Attraction.
• Aaron P. Taylor was not present at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ; at the crucifixion, when given the choice to free one man, he did not shout "Barabbas! Give us Barabbas!"
• After substantial investigation, we have concluded that Aaron P. Taylor did not assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand, thereby triggering the first World War.

There are so many terrible things that Aaron P. Taylor has not done! Through not doing terrible things, he has gained the wisdom that comes with not doing them. Wisdom like this:

In short, ladies: if you don’t want a guy to rape you, don’t do stuff intentionally that you know will make him want to jump your bones. You may think doing these sorts of things is “cute” and “just being a girl,” but it’s dangerous, and can get you hurt. Teasing a guy with soft whispers, body groping, or any other type of enticing maneuver is wrong if you don’t plan on following through.

You heard him right, ladies: if you want to stay safe from Aaron P. Taylor, do not flirt with him, touch him, speak to him, or show him any kind of sexual or friendly attention, lest he be enticed, lose control, and accidentally follow you to a deserted location and give you a raping. What sound advice! I think we can all agree that no woman should ever interact with Aaron P. Taylor again for the rest of his life, can't we?

So, Aaron P. Taylor: thank you for your insight into why women should run away from you, shrieking in terror, whenever you approach. Were I not so busy getting a restraining order against you, I would most definitely give you a cookie.

[Via.]

Satanic Incest Dinosaurs, or: How I Spent My Childhood

You know, we can spend all day talking about "recaps" versus "reviews," and adults reading YA lit, and nostalgia, and triviablogging, and whether those are good things or just a sign of how our generation has infantilized itself. OR - and this is the preferred option, here - we can just celebrate the fact that I was not making any of this up! 

I loved Christopher Pike's books when I was a pre-teen. I passed them around to all the girls that I knew, and they loved them, too. My mother was horrified. I was such a strong reader! Why was I wasting my intelligence? Were these books possibly Satanic? (Mom loves church. So much, Mom loves church. I'm actually thinking of handing out a brief pamphlet to everyone in my life to explain how I came to be, and it will read "CHURCH MOM + BOOZE DAD = THIS." The rest of it will just be pictures of naughty Catholic schoolgirls.) I didn't care. They were about sex, and death, and nobody was going to tell me anything about these subjects, so I had to find what I could.  

Most of my Christopher Pike memories concern reading in the backseat of a hot car, which paused periodically so that my brother could throw up (the boy had a legendarily bad relationship with motor transport; on long drives, we actually resorted to doping him until he fell asleep, so that he wouldn't leave a trail of spew everywhere we went). Something about the heat and the motion and the smell of puke made all of these memories feel hazy and indistinct, like fever dreams, and I could not ever be sure that I was remembering the books correctly. So it is actually reassuring, in many ways, to click through to a recap of Scavenger Hunt and read this: 

Cessy and Davey are actually part of an ancient race of dinosaurs that developed intelligence and found a way to gain immortality after surviving the dinosaur holocaust.

Yes! They were! Dinosaurs who fed on human sacrifice! They also re-animated a dude's dead best friend and disguised him as his teacher for purposes which remain unclear! They were also twins, and they made out! WITH EACH OTHER!!!!! God, I'm so glad I didn't just come up with this. 

There's actually a lot of incest in the Pike books, which I had mercifully forgotten. Also, lots of New Age stuff about ancient astronauts and interdimensional wisdom-bringing gurus (who are inevitably Indian, despite being interdimensional) and walk-ins. I was clicking around last night, and apparently it's kind of a big deal that no-one has ever seen a photo of Christopher Pike or learned anything about him, but I honestly think that, if he exists, he's one of those dudes who wears a quartz crystal around his neck and believes himself to be an alien. Which, if so, his higher wisdom would seem to be kind of incompatible with all the DIRTY TEEN SEX in his novels! 

Did you know that there is a Pike book (Die Softly) in which two cheerleaders have repeated threesomes with a quarterback and then kill him by forcing him to take cocaine? They tie him to a tree and shove it up his nose, I think! They are both super popular at school because they sell cocaine laced cookies at the bake sales. I blame this book for my long-held belief that (a) it was possible to take cocaine in cookie form, and (b) this was the only safe way to do it, because if you put it up your nose, you would instantly die. 

Anyway, I am thrilled to note that Like Pike will soon be covering Whisper of Death, which was the first Pike book I read, and is still in many ways my favorite. In Whisper of Death, a girl fools around with her boyfriend and quickly finds herself in need of a safe and legal abortion, but when she and her dude return from the clinic, they find that their pleasant bedroom community has been transformed into an eerie ghost town, from which there is no escape, and in which they (and the handful of randomly selected teenagers which comprise the town's entire population) have all been sentenced to die grisly coincidental deaths which mirror some unpopular chick's book of extremely violent fairy tales. This is because the unpopular chick died last year, because no-one liked her, and also she was reincarnated in the form of Abortion Chick's untimely fetus. I mean, damn, I sympathize, but don't you think people would have liked her better had she not been plotting to cut them in half via witchcraft? Anyway, the only way for the girl to save her friends is to travel back in time and die mid-abort. Because I guess having the witchcraft child wasn't an option. 

It occurs to me now that Whisper of Death was the first thing that got me and my friends talking about abortion. Yes, it was gory (the goriest Pike book I can remember, aside from Monster, in which space bacteria infested people's brains and made them into cannibals) but the thing that stuck with us was the pregnancy. It also occurs to me that we learned about abortion from a book which told us actually having one would sentence you to a deadly netherworld, but, you know. Sex ed is rarely perfect.